You're right in that he is not even listening to them, but the CEOs will still want to trade federal land to energy companies, and more pipelines. We need to move away from fossil fuels right away according to science, and the local environments. And we can make the switch right now with current renewable technology + energy efficiency (clean electricity).

Renewables currently supply 13 - 15 percent of US energy. It is unlikely that we could make the switch right now. The pillars of energy will be fossil fuels for some time unless some major advances in renewable technology/ storage capabilities take place.

The scientists plan an experiment that will take 15 years to accomplish. The first few years are spent doing the physics planning, some simulations, conference trips and a few slaves (grad students) are given to the senior lab scientists. The cost is minimal. A few papers are published involving extremely dense equations that a tiny niche understands.

Next comes the physics/engineering design feasibility studies. Costs jump, because now things have to be produced. More slaves and a few tradesmen get issued to the physicists. Some minor papers get published in journals that underclassmen might have heard about.

Now comes the real costs of full scale construction. Hundreds of indentured servants start working on the project. The peons who started with the project 7 years ago, have moved on to other labs and projects. New workers have to be trained and brought up to speed. A new congressman got elected. He seeks to move all research money that he can control in the NSF to bio-med for sexy drug company kick-backs. These pie-in-the sky wacky scientists spent a decade and $10's of millions and yielded no results results. The results of this big experiment will come in after the next election, therefore the funding needs to be cut.

The lab does not have a steady source of funding. The money is provided is not big enough to fund the experiments to the scale that is needed for success. THey are stuck doing what they can do and that is simulations and cutting edge physics, software and math. They never get to the construction phase much to the writing of the Nobel winning paper.

Everything is a fucking natural phenomenon though. The circuits in your smartphone work based on natural phenomenon, as do nuclear reactors, and lasers, and trains. That doesn't mean you can post them to this subreddit.

No one has thought of Tom Cruise yet? He would only need the one character from Edge of Tomorrow, to be able to anticipate his enemies every move. All his other characters would be there to distract the enemies or follow out all his orders.